Saturday's performances showed that England and Wales still have a long way to
go if they are to rank among the game's international elite

Consistency is a word that is most often used in rugby to berate referees, yet it applies just a much, if not more, to players and teams and is why you cannot put England and Wales in the highest bracket of international rugby at the moment.

England managed 40 minutes of coherent rugby to put three tries past Argentina on Saturday but then failed to replicate that which had served them well in the second half. This is a sign of immaturity that has to be eradicated for England to make the leap to the rarefied climes of the game.

It requires on-field understanding of what is going wrong at the time and the capability of rectifying it without instruction from coaching staff.

With Dylan Hartley and Courtney Lawes to the fore, England managed to hit the Argentina midfield hard and make ground rapidly, which gave them the chance to open up the defence wider out.

The trendy phrase for this is, I am told, “earning the right to go wide” but having done this England made the mistake of going for glory out without going forward and their game got lost.

Head coach Stuart Lancaster is beginning to get together a very decent pack with genuine competition in every position. Alex Corbisiero, Joe Marler and Mako Vunipola are some trio of loose-heads and David Wilson is finally pushing Dan Cole.

Lawes has proved in the last two games that he can call the line-out which means Geoff Parling cannot be guaranteed a start. Billy Vunipola and Ben Morgan are two ball-carrying No 8s, which leaves openside the only position without depth given that there are several challengers for Tom Wood’s blindside slot.

The pack is the basis of every successful England team and the challenge is to add to this in the three backs’ units. Unfortunately the injuries to Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilagi have interrupted the process of solving England’s most intractable problem which is getting a settled centre partnership.

Neither of the centres in the autumn series is yet demanding automatic selection and without this England’s progress is necessarily curtailed.

Warren Gatland, the Wales head coach, would give much to see his side achieve consistency against southern hemisphere sides as, yet again, Wales came up short against South Africa.

Although they could claim the loss of Jonathan Davies and Adam Jones were blows from which most sides would not recover, the fact is that they did accommodate this misfortune.

Wales made as many clean breaks as any of the teams in the Rugby Championship made against the Springboks, but failed to convert any of them into tries. Whilst the scoreboard tells us Wales lost

24-15 the score of 3-0 in tries shows how effective the Springboks were in taking their chances.

Wales decisively lost the aerial battle with South Africa being far sharper to chase kicks in numbers which meant each time a Welsh catcher was engulfed by players who forced turnovers and penalties.

In contrast, Wales often got one chaser to the tackle but found more Springboks had worked to get in support of the catcher than they had men augmenting the tackler in his battle for possession.

Many supporters feel the Welsh inferiority against the southern hemisphere teams is a matter of confidence. That may be part of it but a more important aspect is that of concentration and just two examples demonstrate this.

When Wales were battering the Springbok line late in the game a succession of drives were supported but then George North appeared in the line, unplanned, and his carry was not supported properly and the ball was turned over.

Another late chance came from much further out when Wales moved the ball left from deep and found nearly 30 metres of width with only the Springbok No 8 and hooker occupying it.

James Hook, of all people, ran so laterally and gave the ball so early that the first defender, Duane Vermeulen, was not fixed and was able to shadow three attackers whilst his team-mates covered ground to stop the attack.

And finally on consistency, we come to the performance of referee Alain Rolland. He was admirably consistent at the tackle area and had the courage to send two props to the bin for repeatedly dropping the scrum.

Players have a responsibility in this area and they must understand that if they want to have a competitive scrum they have to stay up. If they do not they may find that this area is simply abandoned by the game as at least the two uncontested scrum produced quick ball which the sides used to attack.

Given that Rolland was consistent in applying the no-collapse law you have then to wonder why is it he cannot see blatant foot-ups and not-straight feeds.